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The Obama Administration

Posts

Well, there are some legitimate failures with the stimulus, though I still think the votes are never there to get a bigger one passed.

Summers and Geithner made that decision in the White House though, not the President. Romer came to them with a 1.8 trillion dollar proposal which was soundly rejected. Then she offered 1.2, and that was rejected. Which is dumb, and Summers/Geithner were awful decisions.

Never use the phrase "alt right." Call them what they are: white supremacists.

Ignoring the Snark of Seruko, the President is nominally the head of the party. However, this isn't the United Kingdom, so our party system doesn't mean that much. The Speaker, Senate Majority Leader, and the Whips have more pull in the day to day. Ostensibly they're to support the president's agenda but that's not always taken as read.

It's true, I was over the line there. It's been a rough day. I've been called a republican, illogical and a fantastist for holding a political position the is enormously non-controversial outside of this board.
---
SO my bad.

Have you considered that it's more the way that you are delivering the message, more than the actual message itself, which is meeting which such resistance? Honestly, your posts since I started reading have at turns come off as either fairly antagonistic or incredibly patronizing.

More's the shame, since what you are saying really isn't very controversial. Obama could have done a better job dealing with handling congress (particularly early on), and proposed only legislation that I agree with 100%, but I guess I'm missing (or rather missed) the larger point you are trying to make.

His point is that Obama isn't the almighty liberal God-emperor of the country, and as such has failed miserably to maintain absolute control over Congress. And since he couldn't make all of the progressives' wet-dreams come true, he needs to be held accountable.

His point is that Obama isn't the almighty liberal God-emperor of the country, and as such has failed miserably to maintain absolute control over Congress. And since he couldn't make all of the progressives' wet-dreams come true, he needs to be held accountable.

I said good day.

Seruko on February 2012

"How are you going to play Dota if your fingers and bitten off? You can't. That's how" -> Carnarvon
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes

Ignoring the Snark of Seruko, the President is nominally the head of the party. However, this isn't the United Kingdom, so our party system doesn't mean that much. The Speaker, Senate Majority Leader, and the Whips have more pull in the day to day. Ostensibly they're to support the president's agenda but that's not always taken as read.

It's true, I was over the line there. It's been a rough day. I've been called a republican, illogical and a fantastist for holding a political position the is enormously non-controversial outside of this board.
---
SO my bad.

Have you considered that it's more the way that you are delivering the message, more than the actual message itself, which is meeting which such resistance? Honestly, your posts since I started reading have at turns come off as either fairly antagonistic or incredibly patronizing.

More's the shame, since what you are saying really isn't very controversial. Obama could have done a better job dealing with handling congress (particularly early on), and proposed only legislation that I agree with 100%, but I guess I'm missing (or rather missed) the larger point you are trying to make.

This just isn't true. Obama was Mr. Bipartisanship from the get-go, in word and in practice. (Attempts, at least.) I find it very difficult to listen to much of the campaign and early-term Obama and not come away thinking that he honestly believes in concept of the 'loyal opposition'. It was Congressional Repubs that weren't operating in good faith, because they consistently stonewalled him no matter how genial he was.

If anything, it's one of Obama's 1st term failings that it took him so long to realize that that's how the game was being played, and his policy suffered for it.

If anything, it's one of Obama's 1st term failings that it took him so long to realize that that's how the game was being played, and his policy suffered for it.

Though in fairness, I don't know that any president in history has faced such uncompromising refusal to engage as a policy from the opposition party.

Congress had always had a decent record of compromise and bipartisanship until around the middle-part of Clinton's terms.

Maybe, maybe not. It certainly would be risky to go into bully-pulpit mode too soon, but GOP politicians were already using the extreme fearmongering rhetoric before he was even elected, if that was any indication.

I am reminded of a portion of that Altantic article about Obama that I linked in here a while back. Here's the bit that speaks to this very thing. (Obama, Explained)

My impression from recent evidence is that he has found his footing, and has come to understand how to use the constrained but still real powers of a president facing congressional opposition—just in time. The most enlightening document I found for assessing Obama’s recent moves turns out to be 66 years old.

This is a memorandum that James H. Rowe Jr., a Harvard-trained lawyer who had been Oliver Wendell Holmes’s last law clerk on the Supreme Court and after World War II was a young official at the Bureau of the Budget, wrote to President Harry Truman soon after the midterm elections of 1946. In that election, the Republicans gained 55 seats in the House and 12 in the Senate, to take control of both houses for the first time since before the New Deal. Truman was if anything less prepared, for more overwhelming responsibilities, than Obama was. Three months after he unexpectedly became president upon Franklin Roosevelt’s death, he had to decide on the use of atomic weapons whose very existence FDR had never let him know about. After that came management of post-war Europe and Asia. But the fundamentals of Truman’s political situation, as described in Rowe’s memo, are amazingly similar to those Obama now faces.

Rowe tells Truman that, with the Republican victory, he should be prepared for obstruction and nonstop partisan stalemate, not because of strategic mistakes on his side but because this is the basic nature of the American system. Anyone who thinks that American politics is more embattled “than ever,” as I am often tempted to, should read this memo (and Samuel Popkin’s exegesis of it, in The Candidate).

Rowe points out that when an opposing party holds Congress, it will always view weakening the president as its paramount goal. It will launch as many congressional investigations as possible, in hopes of finding scandal in an administration or at least distracting its appointees. It will block nominations and try to frustrate a president’s attempts to keep the executive branch operational. Its leaders will define “compromise” as the president’s accepting all of their demands and abandoning his own. If the leaders of Congress do finally strike a deal with the administration, a president should be wary. The “simple fact” about most deals with a congressional opposition, he writes, is that “they just won’t work under the American two-party system”:

For “cooperation” is a one-way street. The President can discipline the Executive Branch sufficiently by exercising his right to hire and fire; he can force it to cooperate. The Republican leaders may agree to have co-equal responsibility for executing the agreements reached on policy but they do not have co-equal power “to deliver” … [Congress] has no parliamentary discipline … for a very simple reason—Congressmen are not representatives of all the people; they represent only their own districts or sections and the particular pressure groups within those sections which are vital to them. No Congressional leader can commit his party because no commitments are binding upon the Members except those they may personally make to their own sections.

Seruko, you've been both far goosier and far more incoherent in both this and other threads.

Non-reforming insurance reform. The only reform possible for a generation which fails to address the problems in health care out comes, or health care prices is a bad deal.
The excuses for this is "but GOP obstructionism," the bad deal mentioned above past with zero GOP support and 100% GOP opposition. So why no meaningful refrom?
Second excuse "but Democratic obstructionism," if the titular head of a political party cannot rally his own troops to pass his own legislation, then he is a bad leader.
If the titular head of a political party does not want to pass legislation that he campaigned for, and wants instead to pass legislation that he campaigned against, then he is acting in bad faith. The office of the president is one in which we expect a good leader acting in good faith.

Please forgive me If I've been unclear about that argument.

How about this: you craft a reality where you can get blue-dog Democrats in the Senate from Arkansas and Nebraska to get on board with any kind of public healthcare reform (keep in mind that Blanche Lincoln went on to lose her re-election campaign by 21 points despite voting against ACA) and I'll get you one where we have a better healthcare reform.

Dismissing "Democratic obstructionism" and expecting Obama to rule over the Democratic party with an iron fist is simply ignoring reality.

Don't forget about Lieberman.

This is Pure Apologia and without substance. "That Dog won't Hunt."
as
1. It is one of the core roles of the president of the US to act as the political head of their own political party. If the president cannot get his own people in line then they have failed in their role as a leader. For example. Dog walkers walk dogs. When dogs don't want to go some place well that is what the freaking leash is for.
2. Even ignoring the above, there is the well used parliamentary procedure to circumvent the 60 person requirement, a procedure that was ultimately used anyway.

The least often used, and best in my opinion, argument against Obama the President is that he's just not very good at getting his own legislation past. He's not very good at the executive part of his job. FFS the Republicans impeached Clinton and Clinton still whipped them like dogs to get the legislation that he wanted past, past. If Obama is unable, unwilling or playing some kind of game that prevents him from doing the same to his own people, he's not fit for the job.

Edit: The same goes for every other major policy fight from the stimulus to the debt ceiling limit. Either Obama is an awful executive (politically naive and impotent) or his real agenda is not to do what's necessary to fix things. Either way.

No, the President is not supposed to be the head of his party, and frankly, that's a quite dangerous argument to make.

This is the most basic US Civics.
Perhaps this third grade primer will help.
www.scholastic.com/browse/subarticle.jsp?id=1708

Yeah, no, the President is not the head of his party (though he is one of its main leaders, and has a significant amount of influence.) The reality is that our parties don't really have what you could consider a true "head" of the party, like you see in other countries. A lot of that is due to how our government is constructed - unlike a parliamentary democracy, our executive and legislative branches are not only separated, but pit against one another by the separation of powers, and another factor is that our parties are closer to the broad coalitions formed in other nations as opposed to their parties.

The failure by the founding fathers to anticipate and account for the existence of political parties (which is kind of shocking given the deep divide between the federalists and anti-federalists at the time) is to blame for a lot of the systemic problems in our current government.

Seruko, you've been both far goosier and far more incoherent in both this and other threads.

Non-reforming insurance reform. The only reform possible for a generation which fails to address the problems in health care out comes, or health care prices is a bad deal.
The excuses for this is "but GOP obstructionism," the bad deal mentioned above past with zero GOP support and 100% GOP opposition. So why no meaningful refrom?
Second excuse "but Democratic obstructionism," if the titular head of a political party cannot rally his own troops to pass his own legislation, then he is a bad leader.
If the titular head of a political party does not want to pass legislation that he campaigned for, and wants instead to pass legislation that he campaigned against (which is what happened), then he is acting in bad faith. The office of the president is one in which we expect a good leader acting in good faith.

Please forgive me If I've been unclear about that argument.

I have other arguments which are controversial here, but less so in other more reasonable environments. Obama's foreign policy is the natural continuation of Bushes foreign policy, Obama's Economic policy is very similar to Bush's economic policy within a significant digit, not addressing serious economic issues like the weakness of the SEC, meaningful bank reform, continuing trickle down vs bottom up security of the housing sector, the boomers retiring (and the obvious predictable effects on Medicare and social security) to name only a few.

Why do I focus on those issues? Because those are the issues are largely the issues that the Federal Government, and thus the president as it's executive head, have to deal with. Why the majority of the people on these boards think DOMA and DADT are the key issues of the day frankly amazes me. They're not even very important as social issues go. There are more African Americans and Latinos who will go to jail because of the drug war than there are homosexuals in the unites states, a situation which has no end in sight, now that's a social issue. A social issue not being addressed by the Obama administration, which wasn't addressed by the Bush administration, and pretty clearly more important.

But it's farm more important here, for some to argue to the death that Obama is nothing like Bush, because apparently Bush was very stupid and Obama is very smart.
Tribal non-sense.

I don't understand why people are so down on the ACA here. There are a number of provisions of the bill designed to reduce costs. For example:

2. Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute - by studying patient outcomes from different treatments, we should get better information one what treatments are and are not cost effective. There are also other research committees established to evaluate the effectiveness of different forms of care. Even though none of their reccomentations are binding, the research will hopefully influence what insurers will cover.

3. The individual mandate will bring a lot more good risk into insurer risk pools, allowing for the creation of functional individual and small group insurance markets.

5. The anti-discrimination rules and cadillac tax should both make it harder for insurers to market "platinum" plans that provide very high levels of benefits to select individuals.

I understand that these and the other provisions of the ACA are aimed at insurers, not providers, but if you change the amount that insurers will pay to providers, you will influence what kinds of care providers actually provide. It isn't perfect, but it also isn't nothing.

I think it's fine to criticize Obama for feeling that he failed you, I don't think it's fair to criticism him for positions he never actually took.

I have found that "feeling that he failed you" is typically (though not always) based on a Green Lanternist view of what the President can actually accomplish. There are severe constrains on what he can do, and the electoral incentives facing him are often very different from those that individual members of Congress face.

I think it's often as invalid to criticize him failing you as it is invalid to criticize him for positions he hasn't taken.

I think it's fine to criticize Obama for feeling that he failed you, I don't think it's fair to criticism him for positions he never actually took.

I have found that "feeling that he failed you" is typically (though not always) based on a Green Lanternist view of what the President can actually accomplish. There are severe constrains on what he can do, and the electoral incentives facing him are often very different from those that individual members of Congress face.

I think it's often as invalid to criticize him failing you as it is invalid to criticize him for positions he hasn't taken.

The problem is that a lot of younger people got their idea of "how the government should operate" from the Bush Administration, not really realizing that was an aberration. We've also ceded a lot of power to the executive from the legislative which is a problem.

I think it's fine to criticize Obama for feeling that he failed you, I don't think it's fair to criticism him for positions he never actually took.

I have found that "feeling that he failed you" is typically (though not always) based on a Green Lanternist view of what the President can actually accomplish. There are severe constrains on what he can do, and the electoral incentives facing him are often very different from those that individual members of Congress face.

I think it's often as invalid to criticize him failing you as it is invalid to criticize him for positions he hasn't taken.

The problem is that a lot of younger people got their idea of "how the government should operate" from the Bush Administration, not really realizing that was an aberration. We've also ceded a lot of power to the executive from the legislative which is a problem.

There were a series of issues that the administration could have done better, which were within their control. They did a bad job on healthcare and they missed their chance to change the way finance works. To be fair, on the latter, Geithner convinced Obama that their job was to make the banks feel confident, and not to change the way they operate. Obama's a lawyer, not an economist after all.

Guys, there are limits on what Obama can do. Unless something is incredibly popular or unpopular with 80% of the American public, the President is going to have to compromise, even when his party controls both chambers of Congress. The thing is, the parties are never monolithic, sure the GOP is more cohesive but even they have members not always going with the party line because the party line isn't always popular with the majority of reliable voters in their congressional district.

Seruko, you've been both far goosier and far more incoherent in both this and other threads.

Non-reforming insurance reform. The only reform possible for a generation which fails to address the problems in health care out comes, or health care prices is a bad deal.
The excuses for this is "but GOP obstructionism," the bad deal mentioned above past with zero GOP support and 100% GOP opposition. So why no meaningful refrom?
Second excuse "but Democratic obstructionism," if the titular head of a political party cannot rally his own troops to pass his own legislation, then he is a bad leader.
If the titular head of a political party does not want to pass legislation that he campaigned for, and wants instead to pass legislation that he campaigned against, then he is acting in bad faith. The office of the president is one in which we expect a good leader acting in good faith.

Please forgive me If I've been unclear about that argument.

How about this: you craft a reality where you can get blue-dog Democrats in the Senate from Arkansas and Nebraska to get on board with any kind of public healthcare reform (keep in mind that Blanche Lincoln went on to lose her re-election campaign by 21 points despite voting against ACA) and I'll get you one where we have a better healthcare reform.

Dismissing "Democratic obstructionism" and expecting Obama to rule over the Democratic party with an iron fist is simply ignoring reality.

Don't forget about Lieberman.

This is Pure Apologia and without substance. "That Dog won't Hunt."
as
1. It is one of the core roles of the president of the US to act as the political head of their own political party. If the president cannot get his own people in line then they have failed in their role as a leader. For example. Dog walkers walk dogs. When dogs don't want to go some place well that is what the freaking leash is for.
2. Even ignoring the above, there is the well used parliamentary procedure to circumvent the 60 person requirement, a procedure that was ultimately used anyway.

The least often used, and best in my opinion, argument against Obama the President is that he's just not very good at getting his own legislation past. He's not very good at the executive part of his job. FFS the Republicans impeached Clinton and Clinton still whipped them like dogs to get the legislation that he wanted past, past. If Obama is unable, unwilling or playing some kind of game that prevents him from doing the same to his own people, he's not fit for the job.

Edit: The same goes for every other major policy fight from the stimulus to the debt ceiling limit. Either Obama is an awful executive (politically naive and impotent) or his real agenda is not to do what's necessary to fix things. Either way.

No, the President is not supposed to be the head of his party, and frankly, that's a quite dangerous argument to make.

This is the most basic US Civics.
Perhaps this third grade primer will help.
www.scholastic.com/browse/subarticle.jsp?id=1708

Yeah, no, the President is not the head of his party (though he is one of its main leaders, and has a significant amount of influence.) The reality is that our parties don't really have what you could consider a true "head" of the party, like you see in other countries. A lot of that is due to how our government is constructed - unlike a parliamentary democracy, our executive and legislative branches are not only separated, but pit against one another by the separation of powers, and another factor is that our parties are closer to the broad coalitions formed in other nations as opposed to their parties.

The failure by the founding fathers to anticipate and account for the existence of political parties (which is kind of shocking given the deep divide between the federalists and anti-federalists at the time) is to blame for a lot of the systemic problems in our current government.

My understanding is they knew and feared parties but instead of creating hard rules for them they tried to convince america not to form them. Apparently they were not aware how impossible that was.

Seruko, you've been both far goosier and far more incoherent in both this and other threads.

Non-reforming insurance reform. The only reform possible for a generation which fails to address the problems in health care out comes, or health care prices is a bad deal.
The excuses for this is "but GOP obstructionism," the bad deal mentioned above past with zero GOP support and 100% GOP opposition. So why no meaningful refrom?
Second excuse "but Democratic obstructionism," if the titular head of a political party cannot rally his own troops to pass his own legislation, then he is a bad leader.
If the titular head of a political party does not want to pass legislation that he campaigned for, and wants instead to pass legislation that he campaigned against, then he is acting in bad faith. The office of the president is one in which we expect a good leader acting in good faith.

Please forgive me If I've been unclear about that argument.

How about this: you craft a reality where you can get blue-dog Democrats in the Senate from Arkansas and Nebraska to get on board with any kind of public healthcare reform (keep in mind that Blanche Lincoln went on to lose her re-election campaign by 21 points despite voting against ACA) and I'll get you one where we have a better healthcare reform.

Dismissing "Democratic obstructionism" and expecting Obama to rule over the Democratic party with an iron fist is simply ignoring reality.

Don't forget about Lieberman.

This is Pure Apologia and without substance. "That Dog won't Hunt."
as
1. It is one of the core roles of the president of the US to act as the political head of their own political party. If the president cannot get his own people in line then they have failed in their role as a leader. For example. Dog walkers walk dogs. When dogs don't want to go some place well that is what the freaking leash is for.
2. Even ignoring the above, there is the well used parliamentary procedure to circumvent the 60 person requirement, a procedure that was ultimately used anyway.

The least often used, and best in my opinion, argument against Obama the President is that he's just not very good at getting his own legislation past. He's not very good at the executive part of his job. FFS the Republicans impeached Clinton and Clinton still whipped them like dogs to get the legislation that he wanted past, past. If Obama is unable, unwilling or playing some kind of game that prevents him from doing the same to his own people, he's not fit for the job.

Edit: The same goes for every other major policy fight from the stimulus to the debt ceiling limit. Either Obama is an awful executive (politically naive and impotent) or his real agenda is not to do what's necessary to fix things. Either way.

No, the President is not supposed to be the head of his party, and frankly, that's a quite dangerous argument to make.

This is the most basic US Civics.
Perhaps this third grade primer will help.
www.scholastic.com/browse/subarticle.jsp?id=1708

Yeah, no, the President is not the head of his party (though he is one of its main leaders, and has a significant amount of influence.) The reality is that our parties don't really have what you could consider a true "head" of the party, like you see in other countries. A lot of that is due to how our government is constructed - unlike a parliamentary democracy, our executive and legislative branches are not only separated, but pit against one another by the separation of powers, and another factor is that our parties are closer to the broad coalitions formed in other nations as opposed to their parties.

The failure by the founding fathers to anticipate and account for the existence of political parties (which is kind of shocking given the deep divide between the federalists and anti-federalists at the time) is to blame for a lot of the systemic problems in our current government.

My understanding is they knew and feared parties but instead of creating hard rules for them they tried to convince america not to form them. Apparently they were not aware how impossible that was.

George Washington warned against political parties.

The first election he wasn't a part of was a horrific slugfest between two political parties, parties that two of the founders were the heads of fyi.

I'm ok with it, depending on what they mean by 'ties'. You know a guy? Nah. You actively participate in terrorist activity? Sure.

You want Obama to have the right to execute an American citizen without trial? Really?

So, what option do you suggest? We can't try them in absentia, thanks to habeas corpus. And just saying "well, we can't go after them because they're American" is not an option for a myriad of reasons.

I'm ok with it, depending on what they mean by 'ties'. You know a guy? Nah. You actively participate in terrorist activity? Sure.

You want Obama to have the right to execute an American citizen without trial? Really?

So, what option do you suggest? We can't try them in absentia, thanks to habeas corpus. And just saying "well, we can't go after them because they're American" is not an option for a myriad of reasons.

Pretty much this. You seem to be suggesting that if a full terrorist cell was formed by Americans starting committing terrorist attacks in a another country we couldn't really do anything unless they picked a fight.

It's silly. If someone is an enemy combatant the military should be able to engage them without being engaged first. When the enemy can be an american citizen that doesn't change. It's not something I want to happen but its the truth. The rules need to be defined because this wasn't a problem before. We also need to define exactly what warfare is.

I'm ok with it, depending on what they mean by 'ties'. You know a guy? Nah. You actively participate in terrorist activity? Sure.

You want Obama to have the right to execute an American citizen without trial? Really?

So, what option do you suggest? We can't try them in absentia, thanks to habeas corpus. And just saying "well, we can't go after them because they're American" is not an option for a myriad of reasons.

I suggest not dropping hellfire missiles on American citizens currently living in countries we are not at war with. If you cannot get the country to arrest and extradite them then send in the CIA black ops. Right now the current administration has arbitrarily murdered three American citizens without trial, and Obama's response is that he has a right to kill anyone engage in "terrorist activities" without any form of judicial review or even defining what terrorist activities means. Which I think is what scares me the most.

It is not the fact that he is killing American citizens. It is the fact that he has legitimized it and acted like it is not a big deal. If he had kept his mouth shut, sent in black ops, and maintained deniability I would be much less concerned. Instead he has flaunted his ability to execute American citizens without trial, and act as if there is nothing inherently wrong with what he has done. Between that, and his continued defense of the Justice department he is giving Bush a serious run for his money when it comes to dangerous crazy in the oval office.

If these guys were so dangerous and could not be extradited, nor arrested, and we had documented proof there were a clear danger to American citizens then yes, send in the black ops. We should not be hellfiring convoys in Yemen because some asshole runs an anti American newsletter. Printing that blowing yourself up is awesome, and instructions to making bombs should not be a reason to blow you up, and have people show up to collect severed fingers to help identify who they just blew up.

If I was kidnapped, woke up in a lab, told they were going to replace my vocal cords with those of Tony Jay, and lock me in a sound booth until the day I die I would look those bastards right in the eye and say "Alright you sons of bitches lets do this. This one is for the children."

I'm ok with it, depending on what they mean by 'ties'. You know a guy? Nah. You actively participate in terrorist activity? Sure.

You want Obama to have the right to execute an American citizen without trial? Really?

So, what option do you suggest? We can't try them in absentia, thanks to habeas corpus. And just saying "well, we can't go after them because they're American" is not an option for a myriad of reasons.

I suggest not dropping hellfire missiles on American citizens currently living in countries we are not at war with. If you cannot get the country to arrest and extradite them then send in the CIA black ops. Right now the current administration has arbitrarily murdered three American citizens without trial, and Obama's response is that he has a right to kill anyone engage in "terrorist activities" without any form of judicial review or even defining what terrorist activities means. Which I think is what scares me the most.

It is not the fact that he is killing American citizens. It is the fact that he has legitimized it and acted like it is not a big deal. If he had kept his mouth shut, sent in black ops, and maintained deniability I would be much less concerned. Instead he has flaunted his ability to execute American citizens without trial, and act as if there is nothing inherently wrong with what he has done. Between that, and his continued defense of the Justice department he is giving Bush a serious run for his money when it comes to dangerous crazy in the oval office.

If these guys were so dangerous and could not be extradited, nor arrested, and we had documented proof there were a clear danger to American citizens then yes, send in the black ops. We should not be hellfiring convoys in Yemen because some asshole runs an anti American newsletter. Printing that blowing yourself up is awesome, and instructions to making bombs should not be a reason to blow you up, and have people show up to collect severed fingers to help identify who they just blew up.

So your problem is killing American citizens in a way that creates accountability?

I think anyone, citizen or not, if they can be detained easily and non-lethally should be done as much. However, if they're a proven threat to America (or any place, for that matter) and you have a shot (no pun intended) of taking them out, then do it. People don't just accidentally fall into acts of terrorism, it's a choice they make and with every choice there are consequences.

I mean, maybe I'm just cold-hearted but I'd much rather someone get shot in the head, citizen or no, then let them continue to live and eventually cause the death of many people.

Though I will agree that you don't want to give a president you like powers that a later one you don't like could abuse, which is why it's very important to define what is and is not terrorism.

To be honest I don't think there is much of difference between having to resort to using a hellfire missiles to get American citizen who has gone terrorist in a foreign land and law enforcement having to use lethal force on an American citizen that has become a dangerous threat (IE they have stormed a building and are deliberately shooting people) those around them in country.

Yes, if you can safely detain a dangerous individual, you should but being an American citizen doesn't give someone a free pass from being whacked when they are so dangerous that the law can't safely detain them. After all if the only way to stop the crazy, gun-totting killer, in the homeland, is to well kill him. Should the cops say "well fuck got to let him go because we can't whack this murderous bitch since that's denying him a trial?' Or should they say "well can't take him alive and he is too much of threat to be allowed to roam the streets, better ice the fucker for public safety?"

I'm ok with it, depending on what they mean by 'ties'. You know a guy? Nah. You actively participate in terrorist activity? Sure.

You want Obama to have the right to execute an American citizen without trial? Really?

So, what option do you suggest? We can't try them in absentia, thanks to habeas corpus. And just saying "well, we can't go after them because they're American" is not an option for a myriad of reasons.

I suggest not dropping hellfire missiles on American citizens currently living in countries we are not at war with. If you cannot get the country to arrest and extradite them then send in the CIA black ops. Right now the current administration has arbitrarily murdered three American citizens without trial, and Obama's response is that he has a right to kill anyone engage in "terrorist activities" without any form of judicial review or even defining what terrorist activities means. Which I think is what scares me the most.

It is not the fact that he is killing American citizens. It is the fact that he has legitimized it and acted like it is not a big deal. If he had kept his mouth shut, sent in black ops, and maintained deniability I would be much less concerned. Instead he has flaunted his ability to execute American citizens without trial, and act as if there is nothing inherently wrong with what he has done. Between that, and his continued defense of the Justice department he is giving Bush a serious run for his money when it comes to dangerous crazy in the oval office.

If these guys were so dangerous and could not be extradited, nor arrested, and we had documented proof there were a clear danger to American citizens then yes, send in the black ops. We should not be hellfiring convoys in Yemen because some asshole runs an anti American newsletter. Printing that blowing yourself up is awesome, and instructions to making bombs should not be a reason to blow you up, and have people show up to collect severed fingers to help identify who they just blew up.

So your problem is killing American citizens in a way that creates accountability?

It really does seem like the big fuss is that they told everyone about it.

Except that they basically did the equivalent of a hellfire missile with Osama Bin Laden and no one bitches that he didn't get a trial, so who the fuck knows.